im mildly procrastinating my next chapter bc i suck at action scenes and! im trying to figure out how in the fuck nihlus does not end up very dead
like. im figuring he does get shot(and im debating who's pov it's gonna be in. which one will hurt y'all more) but where is still up in the air. saren also probably goes oh fuck oh shit fuck, panics and tries to get some medigel and bandages on him in an attempt to make sure he doesn't bleed out (which is part of how zan goes hm. that's,,,,weird? why would he want to try to kill nihlus and then fix him up??) then he's discovered an zan has jenkins call for help either in the form of someone grabbing them or there's gotta be a doctor somewhere (there were the science peeps but it's been a hot minute and i don't remember why they were there)
so rlly my main thing up in the air is "where in the god damn fuck can nihlus get shot and not die immediately"
i always figured in canon it was the back of the head area which is how Shep can run over there and he's dead already despite it being just a few moments
saren shoots nihlus somewhere mostly nonvital and it hurts like a bitch, nihlus is too startled to do anything for a moment but to turn on saren like what the FUCK was that??
at that point sovereign has left the building so saren knows he has to do something but he doesn't want to kill him (it was hard enough wrestling to shoot him in a place that wouldn't kill him) so he just. knocks him out
biotically yeets him into a wall or hits him w the butt of his gun but nihlus is down for the count, still breathing, but down
so he bandages him as fast as he can and turns tail to run away as quickly as he can because he hears people and it's gonna be difficult enough to explain later but he doesn't want to explain it right then and now why his boyfriend is on the ground unconscious and bleeding